Mine is a short day’s journey into the morning.

 I started to walk the mall. I have been reluctant to admit it, as it seems so mundane, but a regimen of mall walking at least six days a week proves to be very invigorating.

The mall is filled starting about 7 a.m. with mostly older people endlessly walking.  

There are groups of women, and groups of men, as well as couples, singles, people with walkers, people with canes and even a person or two every now and then with crutches! It has the look of a place of miracles, a shrine to St. Commerce, where everyone must someday throw off their shackles and be free.

The food court is open early so groups gather to get coffee and meet and talk. I know no one here and am happy not to join any group. I have spent my life not joining, so this is a comfortable position for me. It looks a lot like my junior high cafeteria in the seating patterns.

Most groups are single sex but a few have an extra man or woman attached. Many seem to be by ethnicity, which I can only tell by listening to the languages spoken, clearly not English.

It’s gentle pace, and most people can out walk me. My health keeps me moving slowly and I have the need to stop every now and then to catch my breath, however, the mall leaves me not concerned about upward slopes or cold breezes. I am passed by people with walkers but that’s just a fact.

There are some “power couples”, slightly younger than most on a race to something, and I always want to hand them a trophy as they speed walk by me. There are some younger people on morning exercise workouts who find, like me, that this is an easy and free exercise place. Some seem to be mall employees walking before work starts.

After 9:00 a.m. it seems the escalators start running so you can walk on several levels.

I told someone the other day that I was doing this and he wanted to know how many rotations of the mall I made each day, as his friends do three. I tried to laugh it off as life is not, for me, a competition. If I did three rotations, I would need to clarify his description of a complete rotation and by the way, they would bury me before I ever reached that goal.

This is a personal journey and some days I can do better than others. I learn to eat and drink (coffee) less before I go, and complete my breakfast afterwards, not in the food court.

It is good for me and something I set out as a personal journey. It is safe, warm in winter and cool in summer, has plenty of parking, gives me something to look at (window shopping) and does it all with no charge, no real commitment and no contracts. You can show up any time from 7:00 a.m. until 9:00 in the evening and walk around.

This is a no humor story, it’s a direction for me at this point, and gives me a good place to start the day.

The only funny thing is what happens to coats. I keep mine on but people must come in without them and it’s cold and snowy right now, or they have secret places to keep them, or have group watchers in the food court to oversee the coats. Many have coats tied around their waists.

Mine is a short day’s journey into the morning.